Once Upon A Teacher

We want readers to constantly be thinking and developing ideas and theories while they read, so using "stop and jots" (post it notes) help them remember to reflect, take note of and synthesize their thoughts while reading.

I'm discovering how important it is to really look at the genre of study that a grade level is working on to help guide examples and non-examples of what students are learning to notice in their jots. Third grade is currently working on their developing characters study in Readers' Workshop. I chose the following examples for jots to help guide their thinking about characters. This chart can be added to as they continue to learn new things about their study of characters:

Places worth Stopping and Jotting:

I learned something NEW about my character

My character's action was unusual

When I want to write about what is confusing me???

When I disagree with what is happening

When the text is BEGGING me to write something!

When something really important happens
When you have a prediction with evidence

When I see a PATTERN in my character's actions

I am also finding that it is just as important to hold them accountable for doing thinking they are capable of doing by reminding them what they should not be doing any more:

What's NOT worth posting:

The first thought coming to mind

Repeating what I already jotted

Forcing myself to have a thought

Nothing exciting is happening

Restating what the text says

Does your current genre of learning guide your suggested stop and jots? Any suggested prompts to help us with character study in 3rd grade?

Everyone seems to have really loved the learning I shared from Mary Ehrenworth about reading visual text. One of my first grade teachers asked me to do a close reading lesson using visual text. EVERYONE is on fire about close reading!

I looked at the first grade common core standards to see what I felt like would be best approached with visual text. I chose this one: With guidance and support from adults, demonstrate understanding word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

I wanted to use a music video for this lesson, like Mary did in her lesson with us...but every time I found a song that was appropriate for first graders it didn't have specific words I could look at closely to meet this standard. I also felt like looking at ALL the lyrics to a song was too much so I decided to pick a song with a simple repeating chorus. I ended up choosing "Brave" by Sara Bareilles. You can find all the lyrics to the song here, but I wrote only the chorus out on chart paper.

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

On Monday, I went in their classroom and just asked them if they would do a shared reading with me on this passage. I pointed out that the passage had a word "wanna" that is a slang word, but the author had chosen that word for some reason. It was really difficult to not sing this but to read it like a book with the students following along. I'm sure they wondered what kind of weird passage this was, but the cool thing about first graders is they are pretty much willing to try anything you ask them. We practiced a few times and I told them I would come back tomorrow to read it some more.

On Tuesday, I came back with a list of words: chorus, lyrics, slang, rhythm, tempo. I started off by just saying that the secret about this passage we read the day before was that it was lyrics to a song (pointing to the word lyrics as I explained) and that in a song most songs had a chorus (pointing again) where the lyrics were repeated. I pointed out the word slang we had learned the day before and then said the other two words rhythm and tempo were kind of the beat and feeling of a song. They were important signals to help you know if it's a happy song or serious and listening carefully can help you know when it is about to repeat a chorus. I didn't spend but a few minutes on this because it was only just a bit of new info for them to add to their schema and words to possibly help them be able to explain their thinking later on. I played the song for them and we did a shared reading of the chorus every time it came up in the song. Their little eyes lit up. It was fun to watch them enjoying the music and realizing it made it easier to read the passage once they heard it over and over. We listened a few times...there may have been a little bit of dancing in our seats. :) I pointed out the word "brave" and how it was repeated in the passage and asked them to turn and talk to their partners about what that word meant. When listening in and then sharing most of them had the idea that it was not being scared, doing something even if you are scared, courage and many related to the Disney movie Brave. At the end of their thinking I asked them to go home that evening and think of other possible meanings of the word brave.

On Wednesday, I reviewed their thinking from the day before and validated to them again that those thoughts are correct meanings of the word brave. But I introduced the idea that words can have shades of meaning or nuances that are completely different. I explained that today I would show them the visual text for the word brave that the author of this passage had created in the form of a music video. You can see it here, or in the video lesson below. The idea was to help them see the word nuance of brave possibly meaning to be brave enough to be yourself, to be different, to do what you want when you want to do it. I think for first graders they got it. You can see the entire Wednesday lesson below.

If you find yourself asking, "Why go to all this elaborate trouble of having them see two forms of the word brave when she could have just told them and showed them a picture example of each or read books that represented the word differently in each?" The reason is 1) they came to the thinking on their own so they are more likely to remember it later 2) this experience was much more joyful which creates more transferable learning and 3) all learners were able to be successful in this experience, no scaffolding necessary. I am finding visual text to be the level playing field to introduce a concept and it is definitely perfect for close reading. We really examined the word brave!

Many days ago, I had the opportunity to give close reading a try in Maria Mallon's kindergarten classroom. I used what I learned from Mary Ehrenworth about visual text to try to lead kindergarten students to look closely at visual text to notice close details that would lead to theories about what was happening in the visual story we examined.

After my lesson, I conferenced with Maria about what she thought about the student outcomes and how she felt about the differences she noticed in my vocabulary and questioning with the students. She was very positive and excited about trying this new strategy! We began talking about what a "day 2" lesson would look like and Maria was excited to try to give it a try herself. What a teacher learner! We made a plan for me to come back and observe her teaching this lesson.

Then...as Murphy's law would have it, Maria woke up with a cold and scratchy throat. (It is the plight of all teachers of young children.) I offered to teach the lesson for her or pass it on to another day but she refused because she was so excited to have the kids finish up their "thinking" about the story. She even asked me to film it so we would have the two lessons together to use to show others. Wow - willing to teach something she never taught before, feeling not 100% and did I mention this are kindergarteners? I mean, anything can happen... :)

But of course, she was the master teacher as always, and I think it was as much fun for me to watch the kids from the observing side. I don't know if this relays on tape so I want to point out one of our favorite noticings was that this strategy met the needs of all levels of her learners. Students that are still trying to recognize letters were able to identify happenings in the story and the students that are fluent primary readers already were challenged to consider multiple possibilities for why things could be happening!

Without further ado...here is day 2 of our kindergarten students closely reading with visual text. Would love to know your thoughts and noticings!

Thanks again, Maria, for sharing your classroom and learning with the world!

Tim Rasinski

During my week at the Teachers College Reading Institute, I heard one presenter say: "Tim Rasinski says fluency isn't sexy any more. Complexity is sexy." I laughed, not knowing really what that meant but found out later in the week when I attended a session led by Tim. His session was entitled: Why Reading Fluency Should be Hot! (It's all about what the "catch" words are in education...and it shouldn't be.) Tim Rasinski is a professor of Literacy Education at Kent State University, has written over 200 articles and authored or co-authored over 50 books and is a leader in the field of reading research and fluency. Here's what I learned from Tim:

What makes reading fluency hot??

It is related to comprehension and if you want students to read they need to be fluent, comprehending readers that enjoy reading. You also need joyous readers to have successful readers.

One of the most successful, joyous strategies I use in clinics we run with students is singing. There has been much research on the benefits of singing but for our purposes we will call it using rythmical words. When working with students I start each day with singing "fluency exercises". When looking at the words afterwords you work in the comprehension. You teach them to be thinking about songs they sing and what they mean. Singing is reading! And it's reading with fluency!

A few years ago, he did a speech about this and he received this letter from a teacher:

So after he received her letter he called her and asked if they could do a study the following year. She said sure!

She taught her kids three songs a week, always with the words in front of the kids and prompting them to make sure and look at the words. Becky had lots of ELL kids in her class and they were being assessed by the DRA. First graders were expected to achieve the level of 16 or 18 and none of her 25 kids were below that expectation. Eight or so of her students ended up level 24, 26! Of course this wasn't only because of the singing but you have to ask yourself why students are achieving so well compared to previous classes that different. The singing was what she was doing different.

This appeared as an article in the Reader Teacher, where she is the first author and he is the second on "Bringing Back the Joy of Singing in the Classroom". Fluency is important but we need to work on it in a joyful way. Singing makes us happy!

I got into reading fluency myself as a teacher. I worked with Title 1 and Special Ed kids. I had an interest in teaching kids that struggle. I was doing the best I could with those first kids but no matter how well they comprehended what I read to them their fluency was not improving. I began reading new articles coming out on fluency while working on my Masters Degree and I discovered that the materials I was being given at school addressed comprehension, phonics and everything except fluency. I began trying my own things with my students to improve their fluency and they took off!

There was really nothing on the market you could buy for fluency until The National Reading Panel came out and said fluency was HOT! But it was hot on and off because misunderstandings with oral reading, speed reading and fluency only being important in primary grades kept teachers confused. If students don't get fluency by second grade they need help with that. It's essential.

What’s Hot in “Reading Today” comes out every year. Reading Fluency: 2009 - 2012 came out as not hot! That's what made me mad enough to write this article: “Why Reading Fluency Should be Hot! Common Core Standards labels fluency as one of the foundational skills. Finally.

Tim Rasinski is the author of Word Ladders, a word game for skills practice with word work and building for K - 6. He likes the idea of having fun and playing with words as you learn.

Here are his Building Blocks of Fluency
Model Fluent Reading - read aloud, point out things you do with your voice and character
Assisted Reading - shared reading, paired reading, audio reading (listening center, close caption hearing)
Practice - practice, practice, practice, wide reading (read a story or chapter and talk about it and do extension activities....mediocre reading) deep reading (repeated reading of same thing)

What would motivate a reader to read something more than deeply or repreatedly?
Performance!!

In a recent training day with my fourth grade teachers, I shared my learning from Teachers College Reading Institute about developing theories from stop and jots in Readers' Workshop. I have been

excited to see all the students walking around the building with books they are reading filled with sticky notes sticking out around all the corners of the pages. I even saw a student from our school sitting at her brother's soccer practice diligently reading, then stopping and jotting on extra sticky notes she was carrying around! (You better believe I sent a photo text to her teacher to brag!)

My fourth grade son was working on his reading at home and we had a conversation that went like this:
Me: Hey buddy, what are all those notes sticking out of the book you're reading? Him: I write notes on these stickies about what I'm thinking when I'm reading. Me: Cool, let me read a few. Him: No, mom, you wouldn't understand.
Hmmmm....

Lesson #326 in parenting...
Your child's teacher > Mom (even if she is the reading coach)

Anyway, I was circulating through fourth grade classrooms last week capturing some photos and video for our Writers' Workshop night and just happened upon a brilliant closing share of Readers' Workshop in Jenny Nash's classroom. One of her readers had developed a theory she had been working on. Please forgive the AWFUL camera work. I am a hot mess without a tripod, but I knew if I didn't catch the moment I would miss out and so would you. So take some dramamine and enjoy..

So... you know this famous quote?

Today, mission accomplished. I taught Kindergarten.

Over the last week I have been having a conversation with some of my kindergarten teachers about Close Reading. They are hungry for more information about what that looks like in the primary grades with students that are not reading or are reading at a very low level. I shared my kindergarten inspiration blog, Kinderconfidential, written by Kristine Mraz where she shared her thoughts about Close Reading with her kindergarteners. And I pondered the learning I have experienced following the Close Reading Blogathon by Christopher Lehman and Kate Roberts, as I anxiously await their book coming out next week: Falling in Love with Close Reading .

During all this conversation and pondering I thought to myself, "I am the reading coach, I should be modeling and willing to step into their shoes and learn what will work for our youngest readers. Even if it is epic fail. Even if I pass out." (This was a real possibility.)

So I channeled my inner Mary Ehrenworth and what I learned from her Secret and Songs of Text session I attended at the summer Reading Institute at Teachers' College. She used the visual texts of a Picasso painting and a music video. I looked through the big books in Maria Mallon and Cheryl Dillard's kindergarten classroom and decided to try to teach them to closely read visual text from one big book. My goal was to get the kids to notice nuances of what is happening in the "text" and what the story "seemed" to be about...so they would continue to grow and change their ideas along the way. I would have liked to do this with just one visual but this is where they are right now, so I tried to meet them with what they are used to seeing and teach them this new "Close Reading".

So, while I'm throwing myself out there in front of my colleagues... I might as well share with the rest of the world. Because honestly, whether I am impressed with other lessons I see or photos in classrooms...I ALWAYS learn something from others who share. So since I managed to not pass out I'm sharing the video I had running.

I have plenty I could critique and would like to do over a little differently, but I was mostly happy with the outcomes and look forward to watching Mrs. Mallon teach lesson 2! Would LOVE to hear your thoughts!

K RW Close Reading with Visual Text from Once Upon a Teacher on Vimeo.

http://christopherlehman.wordpress.com/oddsends/we-are-closely-reading-close-reading/

Secrets and Songs

I had the absolute pleasure of learning from Mary Ehrenworth at Teachers College Reading Institute.

Her session was entitled: Secrets and Songs: Deepening What Children See in the Texts They Read

What are some ways to teach close reading so that kids will love reading?
Seeing more and being alert to the secrets and songs of text.

Secrets and Songs of Close Reading

How can we teach students to see more in the texts they encounter? You get out of reading what you bring into reading. You need to know about the things the text is talking about (the nuances it’s referring to)
How can we innovate so that this teaching is engaging, intellectual and joyful?
What methods increase transference? The highest level of instruction is sometimes your read aloud but there is low transference.
What kinds of texts might we incorporate? If they do it then it will be rewarding... That’s increasing the likelihood of transference.

One example activity:
I immediately took note that Mary referred to this as visual text. Read this visual text and see what story it tells.  

Guernica by Pablo Picasso


Mary Ehrenworth

While looking at this Picasso painting she spoke about why Picasso painted it ( “Guernica” was painted in response to a bombing in northern Spain by German and Italian warplanes during the Spanish Civil War. It is a mural sized painting that represented the horrors of war.) Teach kids to notice what there is to be noticed. Turn to partner and speak about what you see.

The next thing would be using words to describe these things you see and back it up with evidence. Make sure to teach kids to be specific but kind of literary. (Lots of times kids skip the hard part of text- make sure they stop and look at every little thing)
Is the painting sad or what? desperate? Not hurt, desolate? What specific word would describe these characters or one of these characters rather than just any character in any book? She asked us to try that with a partner by saying, “Your idea, then your evidence.” Either one character, all characters or compare/contrast characters.

After we spoke for a minute she interrupted us with a mid-teaching point. “Let me tell you what I notice with some nice reading work I see going on here: I heard readers saying the characters seem ____ because______. There is no one right answer when texts are complex so it’s about seeing all the sides of something and telling why you see that or read that. Then synthesize it to what is this starting to be about. “What in the text makes you say that? ”Complex texts are about more than one thing and why do you see what you see?” Teach kids not to say the characters ARE, say the characters SEEM....

So we talked about what is happening in this text, what is happening with the characters and then what is this text starting to be about... message, underlying theme....chances are with complex text there are more than one. So get in the habit of saying: possible idea, evidence and then your partners should be saying, “What makes you say that?” Ask them to point to the part that demonstrates what you are saying. So Close Reading is about wanting to see more in the text.

As another example activity: She then gave us the lyrics to the Mackelmore song: “Wings” Equally complex but different kind of visual text. She suggested we read it with our partner because one of the ways to increase your comprehension and help you see complexity in text is to compare your thinking with someone else.
Read it and think about who is in this story and what does it seem to be about.

"Wings"
(feat. Ryan Lewis)

I was seven years old, when I got my first pair
And I stepped outside
And I was like, momma, this air bubble right here, it's gonna make me fly
I hit that court, and when I jumped, I jumped, I swear I got so high
I touched the net, momma I touched the net, this is the best day of my life
Air Max's were next,
That air bubble, that mesh
The box, the smell, the stuffin', the tread, in school
I was so cool
I knew that I couldn't crease 'em
My friends couldn't afford 'em
Four stripes on their Adidas
On the court I wasn't the best, but my kicks were like the pros
Yo, I stick out my tongue so everyone could see that logo
Nike Air Flight, but bad was so dope
And then my friend Carlos' brother got murdered for his Fours*, whoa

See he just wanted a jump shot, but they wanted to start a cult though
Didn't wanna get caught, from Genesee Park to Othello
You could clown for those Pro Wings, with the Velcro
Those were not tight
I was trying to fly without leaving the ground,
Cause I wanted to be like Mike, right
Wanted to be him, I wanted to be that guy, I wanted to touch the rim
I wanted to be cool, and I wanted to fit in,
I wanted what he had, America, it begins

[Chorus:]
I want to fly
Can you take me far away
Give me a star to reach for
Tell me what it takes
And I'll go so high
I'll go so high
My feet won't touch the ground
Stitch my wings
And pull the strings
I bought these dreams
That all fall down

We want what we can't have, commodity makes us want it
So expensive, damn, I just got to flaunt it
Got to show 'em, so exclusive, this that new shit
A hundred dollars for a pair of shoes I would never hoop in
Look at me, look at me, I'm a cool kid
I'm an individual, yea, but I'm part of a movement
My movement told me be a consumer and I consumed it
They told me to just do it, I listened to what that swoosh said
Look at what that swoosh did
See it consumed my thoughts
Are you stupid, don't crease 'em, just leave 'em in that box
Strangled by these laces, laces I can barely talk
That's my air bubble and I'm lost, if it pops
We are what we wear, we wear what we are
But see I look inside the mirror and think Phil Knight tricked us all
Will I stand for change, or stay in my box
These Nikes help me define me, but I'm trying to take mine, off

[Chorus:]
I want to fly
Can you take me far away
Give me a star to reach for
Tell me what it takes
And I'll go so high
I'll go so high
My feet won't touch the ground
Stitch my wings
And pull the strings
I bought these dreams
That all fall down

It started out, with what I wear to school
That first day, like these are what make you cool
And this pair, this would be my parachute
So much more than just a pair of shoes
Nah, this is what I am
What I wore, this is the source of my youth
This dream that they sold to you
For a hundred dollars and some change
Consumption is in the veins
And now I see it's just another pair of shoes

So what happens in this story? A boy who wants a pair of shoes, a specific kind? And then? Dark moment, friend’s brother killed for shoes? Why wear them? And then? Chorus is like inner thinking of fly, what do they mean? Get away? Then he gives like a mini lecture and a plea for change?

What is really hard about this is this is what is expected of our kids on state tests. The tests are normed on a minute a page and a minute a question. And the kids are really being asked to do close reading, which involves rereading. They have to go back and ponder and linger and think. So you have to give them opportunities in your class to know that the first thing you have to do is ask yourself do I even know what this is saying? Often our kids basically comprehend but they have to be trained to say to themselves, “What am I really noticing?” When you are doing this work what is helpful to kids is being introduced to technical vocabulary.

Here are some words you might use in technical vocabulary of looking at music verses text from a book:

Watch the video:

What did you notice after the chorus in the imagery and tone? Speak to the people for a minute in your group about the lens you were using. You don't always have to explain it out. What they saw, or heard, or thought is ok. One of the things that kids struggle with in state tests is tone. In this video, the tone switches with male voice then kids voices. Why do you think the performer did that?
What was happening with his tone when he got angry?

Here are some insructional methods for this:

Do you see yourself using visual text as a tool to teach text complexity in your clasroom? This got my mind turning with ideas! What do you see yourself doing?

Cross posted on LIVE FROM THE CREEK

Cynthia Satterlee

Here in Florida, we have been talking a lot about how important it will be for our students to learn to write in response to their reading to meet the common core standards but we are still learning what that "looks like" and how to get the students there.

I was very interested to see what Cynthia Satterlee, from Teacher's College Reading Institute had to say during her session entitled: From Post-its to Theories to Writing Literary Essays: Help Students Write Quick Literary Essays in the Reading and Writing Workshop

The first question Cynthia posed to us was, "What do you do with all those post its that the kids are stopping and jotting on while reading?" <As I think of how I threw them away when students were done reading so they could start a new book> Thankfully she didn't really require an answer before she said, "Don't throw them away! Have the kids use them to build theories and essays." It's a gradual process. They move from inference to interpretation. They take the good work they are doing on those post its and make it a little better as they move to writing about their ideas together.

There are so many ways to use the stop and jot: as an active engagement activity during the mini lesson, as an exit ticket before they leave for independent work in workshop, during their reading in their books...but for when it is used as a quick picture for the teacher to see their thinking such as the morning bellringer thought, active engagement or exit ticket try using it with a JOT LOT. On the poster each student has an empty square with their "student number" and they leave their thoughts there. Imagine how much more thought they will put into it knowing their peers with see! This will also give you a quick look at who you need to meet with or form a small group for during the workshop.

First have them grow their surface thinking on the stop and jots. Elaboration on thoughts:
character feeling...... to......character feeling with evidence
character trait.......to.......character trait with evidence
interpretation of character.....to.......interpretation through character

Be ready for quality conversations with your students and for them to have thoughts on their own and with each other by making sure they are reading quality literature. By starting with their thoughts on characters they have someone to "get to know" to build theories on. "How is your theory of this character changing? Why"

In 4th grade students need to make inferences about characters, develop theories about character and find big themes in the story. In 5th grade students need to make inferences about characters interacting with other characters in the setting, notice that author sets the story up in a certain way to reveal theme.

How to make worthwhile post-its to bring to conversation in book clubs:
Don’t come to book club or conversation club without post its to talk about
Boxes and bullets can work on post-its
Use those to build ideas about characters

If there a lot of post its with one idea on each, work with them to see how to make a big idea (How are these post its related - do theory work with them)

When they are ready to start "talking like an essayist" then they can use that language to build their essay.

Post its are important, it helps the teacher understanding your thinking, it helps you form big ideas

Don’t worry about essay structure first, get ideas.

Here's how they can see the structure with the stop in jots:

This will be a big move for us in writing this year. I would love to hear tips and tricks from others that are successfully doing this with their students.

Cross posted on LIVE FROM THE CREEK